We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
This article is a sequel to some previously published work, during the preparation of which I was fortunate enough to have the benefit of many discussions with Wilfred Whiteley. While one cannot assume that the results as presented here would meet with his approval, it is certain that the subject stirred his interest; I hope therefore it will not be considered too unlikely a candidate for the honour of inclusion in his memorial volume
1 Carter, Hazel, Syntax and tone in Kongo, London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1973Google Scholar, abbreviated here to STK. This is a slightly re-worked version of Syntactic tone phrases in Kongo, Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1971Google Scholar.
2 In Guthrie, M., Bantu sentence structure, London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1961Google Scholar. Guthrie's approach is substantially a development of Pike's, Kenneth in ‘Slots and classes in the hierarchical structure of behavior’, Bibliotheca Sacra, CXIV, 455, 1957, 255–62Google Scholar.
3 As described in STK, Appendix v.
4 van den Eynde, K., Eĺements de gramtnaire yaka, Kinshasa, Université Lovanium, 1968Google Scholar.
5 Jespersen, O., The philosophy of grammar, London, Allen and Unwin, 1924, 333Google Scholar.
6 Eynde, Van den, op. cit., p. 74, § 3.4.2.1Google Scholar.
7 From a passage written by Sr. Makondekwa in 1968, in the orthography currently in use in Angola; the second is given below, p. 39, in modified orthography, marked for phrasing and tone. Guthrie, op. cit., writes ko as a separate item also; see e.g. examples 8–10, p. 19.
8 See STK, §§ 1.8.1. and 3.3.2.1.
9 This order is not invariable; of. kakala nkkwa zzayi-mphe ko ‘he wasn't intelligent either’.
10 STK, §§ 3.2.1 and 3.2.3–3.2.3.5.
11 Strictly the comparison should be with pre-prefixed nominate, such as those described on p. 39, below; kikilu is a typical Var. 1 pattern.
12 A full list is given in STK, §§ 2.0–2.2.1.
13 STK, § 2.1.12.
14 The S unit, STK, § 2.1.16, includes nominals with mu- attached, but the reasons for distinguishing this from T are set out in § 2.1.12, see n. 13, above.
15 STK, §§ 2.4.1. and 4.2.4.2, first sentence.
16 STK, §§ 2.2–2.2.1, Alpha and Beta units.
17 See STK, § 2.1.7, for some observations concerning the presence and absence of the IV in Q units (direct object).
18 e.g. Mende. I am indebted to my colleague Dr. Gordon Innes for this information.
19 Guthrie, , op. cit., p. 22Google Scholar, example 20. In STK, § 2.1.20, the term ‘embedded sentence’ is used, but this has come to have a specific and very different meaning in transformational linguistics.
20 For arguments leading to the establishment of basic tonal structure in phrase-initial verbals, see STK, § 6.1.1.
21 See STK, §§ 3.2.3.4 and 4.1.3.
22 See STK, § 3.3.1 and table II, p. 149, for selection of nominal variants for specific units.
23 Cited above on p. 32, see n. 7.
24 Geminates are simplified in auxiliary usage; see STK, § 6.3.
25 STK, § 2.1.18 and table II, p. 149.
